4417. I once held a conversation with spirits about life, to the effect that no one has any life at all of himself but receives it from the Lord, even though he does seem to live of himself; compare 4320. The conversation centred first around what life is - that it consists in having the mental powers of understanding and will; and as understanding is altogether a matter of comprehending what is true and will is altogether a matter of desiring what is good, 4409, it is in an intelligent understanding of what is true and in a will desiring what is good that life consists. But some spirits then spoke who were reasoners; for spirits exist who must be called reasoners because they always reason whether something is really true, and who for the most part dwell in obscurity so far as all truth is concerned. Some spirits, as I say, then spoke, who declared that those without any intelligent understanding of truth or any will desiring what is good do nevertheless have life. Indeed such people, they said, believe that they have life more truly than all others. I was led to say in reply to them that the life of the evil does indeed look to them like life, but this is the life that is called spiritual death. I also told them that they could recognize this from the consideration that if understanding truth and desiring good constitute life from the Divine, then understanding falsity and desiring evil cannot constitute life since evils and falsities are the opposites of life itself.
[2] To convince them of this they were shown what their own life was like. When presented visually it was seen as smoke-filled light emitted from a charcoal fire. While dwelling in that inferior light they cannot do other than suppose that the life of their thought and of their will is the only life there is, all the more so from the fact that the light of the understanding of truth, which is the light of life itself, cannot be seen by them at all. For as soon as they enter that light their own inferior light becomes darkened, so much so that they cannot see anything distinctly, and so cannot perceive anything either. They were also shown what their state of life was like at that time by the removal of the delight they derived from falsity, which removal is effected in the next life by separating them from the spirits in whose community they dwell. Once this was done, they appeared with pallid faces, like those of corpses, so that one might have called them death masks. Regarding the life of animals however, this will in the Lord's Divine mercy be dealt with as a separate subject.
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